Stuff You Didn’t Know You Had

Updated December 13th, 2015.

And now, something completely different!

Apple loads new Macs with a lot of software that we all use (iPhoto, Safari, Mail, iTunes, etc.). They also load new Macs with a lot of software that almost no one uses. But if more of us knew about it, more of us would use it. I think. My goal is to put that software to use, one Boyce Blog reader at a time.

Today’s program that You Didn’t Know You Had is “Grapher.” It’s probably in your Utilities folder (which is in your Applications folder). The icon looks like this (though not as big).

Double-click it, and you get this:

Click the “Open” button and you get this:

Type in an equation (it starts with “y=”), hit Return, and voila! Your equation is graphed. Here’s one, a 2-D example:

Here’s another, this time a 3-D example.

Yes, that’s z=(1/6) * x*x + (1/6) * y * y. Very good.
If you happen to be taking high school math– you know who you are– this will be incredibly useful.

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